Your Own Good
by dysprositos
Summary: Bruce was trying to get back to New York for Thanksgiving, but he ran into trouble crossing into Russia from Belarus, and things just went downhill from there. Somehow, he finds himself as a test subject in a lab. Tony and Pepper begin to worry when Bruce misses his plane to the States, and so Tony rounds up a team to go investigate Bruce's last known location. Warnings inside.
1. Again & Again & Again & Again

**This was written for the 2013 Marvel Bang. Accompanying art is linked on my profile.**

**Oodles of thanks to my amazing beta, irite, who read most of this over the course of a weekend long, long ago.**

**This fic is pretty much pure self-indulgence. It's pretty gory, a bit angsty, and doesn't actually have much in the way of plot. **

**Warnings: psychological torture, torture (including cutting, injections, and suturing), non-consensual drug use, and blood. **

* * *

It was raining.

Bruce slowly opened his eyes to see that he was on his back, looking up into a slate-gray sky. As he blinked, a drop of rainwater splashed into his eye, making him flinch back against the ground.

And then the drizzle turned into a downpour.

_Fantastic._

It was a cold rain, and it did nothing at all to soothe the deep ache in Bruce's bones. He thought he could hear them creaking as he maneuvered himself into a sitting position, could practically feel his joints grinding against each other as he moved.

A quick assessment showed that he was alone, in what seemed like a warehouse district, somewhere. He didn't know where, but he _did _know that he was 85% naked. Somehow, his socks had survived his latest transformation, though only god knew how.

His pants had not been so lucky.

Bruce sighed. He vaguely remembered what had happened. He'd been crossing into Russia from Belarus, trying to get to Moscow to catch a plane back to the States for Thanksgiving. Pepper had set the whole thing up for him, had sent Tony's private plane to collect him, in fact, and all Bruce had to do was get to the airport.

Unfortunately, Bruce's luck seemed to run towards 'hideously bad,' and the car he'd flagged down for a ride had not been full of helpful, friendly citizens, but had rather been full of some not-so-friendly types who'd taken it upon themselves to relieve him of his material possessions. What happened afterwards was fairly evident, even if Bruce didn't remember. Obviously, the Other Guy hadn't taken well to being mugged.

He couldn't help the flash of irritation he felt at that. He'd been doing _good_. He had _control_. At least, some. Enough that he could point the Other Guy in the right direction, sometimes. But when stuff like this happened, it just illustrated how tenuous that control was. He couldn't account for the actions of other people, would never be able to do that. Which meant 'control' was really an illusion.

With another sigh, Bruce looked around, trying to find something that could serve as a covering for his lower half. One of the nearby warehouse doors was slightly ajar, and so Bruce slipped inside, grateful to be out of the rain, at least.

The inside of the warehouse was mostly empty, dark, and gloomy. Still, with some searching, Bruce managed to locate a pair of pants that were two sizes too big, and a sweatshirt that was a size too small. There were no shoes to go with his now-soggy, mostly-shredded socks.

At that moment, Bruce wished quite strongly that he'd taken Tony up on his offer and decided to stay in New York longer than the month he had. Because right now, he was missing his wallet, his (fake) identification, the cell phone Tony had shoved off on him, all his scant amount of money, and any prayer of getting back into the U.S. any time soon.

But it was too late to change the past now. Looking backwards wasn't going to help anything.

Bruce settled down in a corner, his back to the wall, to wait for the rain to stop.

* * *

He must have fallen asleep (not surprising, given how much energy the transformation took), because some unknown amount of time later, he was awakened by an enormous _crash_.

Bruce's eyes snapped open, and he had just enough time to notice that night had fallen before a flashlight beam was blinding him, and someone was yelling something at him in what sounded like Russian.

Tough to say, really; Bruce did not speak Russian.

But he came to understand their meaning well enough, once his eyes adjusted to the light and he saw the group of armed men, all pointing their very large guns at him. With them were the men Bruce had met earlier, the muggers. At least, two of the three. They were bruised, and one had his arm in a sling. They did not seem overly enthused to be here.

Bruce did not want to consider what had happened to the third, though part of him knew, deep down.

It seemed like he'd been found out. Somehow. These two men had gone for help when they'd been attacked, had come back, had tracked him in here, and now he'd been identified.

That was all well and good, but Bruce _still _didn't understand Russian, and the assembled group was getting louder and more riled up.

And then, someone fired their gun.

The bullet caught Bruce just below the knee, a splash of hot agony from ankle to hip, and he had enough time to think _Oh, not again_ before he was gone.

* * *

When he came to again, he was lying on something cold and hard.

Opening his eyes, he saw that his surroundings were fairly dim, a scant bit of light coming from under what was probably the door. It was cold. But this time, at least, he was dry.

Bruce sat up, bones definitely creaking audibly, stiff and sore and nearly too exhausted to move. Two transformations that close together were wreaking havoc on his body, and his muscles all felt stretched and sore, unwilling to listen to his brain.

Not that his brain was saying much. Bruce was _trying _to put things together, _trying _to connect the dots, but he was so _tired_ that all he was getting was a faint, staticky hum.

He could see he was in a small space, less than ten feet by ten feet. It was more like a hole in the ground than a cell, though. The floor looked like dirt, and the walls were solid concrete under his roaming fingers, save for the heavy metal door across from him.

Bruce groaned, swinging his legs over the edge of his metal cot. He was naked again, without even the scant dignity afforded by socks. Wherever he was, it didn't seem like somewhere he especially _wanted _to be.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. Well, he _really _wanted to eat the fattiest, most carbohydrate-laden food he could find, but neither of those things were going to happen. Before he could sleep, he had to figure out what was going on. So he forced himself to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs as best he could, and limped over to the door.

But it was solid steel, without even a window, and, pressing his ear to it, Bruce couldn't hear anything but his own heartbeat and shallow breathing. The light coming in at the bottom of the door had a dim, yellow quality to it.

Not the most informative. Bruce decided to give up and get some rest.

He was lying on the cot when he heard footsteps approaching. Several sets. Heavy. Bruce was immediately more aware. He sat up.

A moment later, a lock turned in the door, and it swung slowly open.

There were three men framed in the doorway, and it took a moment to adjust enough that Bruce could see one of them was wearing a long, white coat. The others were armed guards.

"Come with me," the white coat said, his voice lightly accented. But not with a Russian accent. Something from further west. German, maybe, or some mix from years of travel. Who knew?

Bruce was not overly inclined to obey, given how his day had been going. "Who are you?"

No one answered, which wasn't exactly surprising. So Bruce tried again. "Where am I?"

"Come with me," was the only reply.

This was decidedly _not good_. Bruce had always feared this situation, had feared being locked up.

_Like an animal_.

And...how he'd gotten here...that wasn't good, either. Two 'incidents' in such a short time...that was bad. He hadn't had such a bad streak since Manhattan.

_And at least one of those 'incidents' in New York was intentional_.

Right now, he didn't know what had happened. How he'd gotten here. How many people had been hurt...or worse. Whatever had happened, though, it had to have been bad, if he'd been apprehended and was being held...captive.

At least, from the way this guy was acting, that's what Bruce thought was happening. So he answered, "I don't think so."

Mr. Whitecoat nodded, as if this was what he expected. "Very well." He motioned to his lackeys, who raised their guns. "You have killed a man, you know. Your cooperation is not optional."

The way he spoke was authoritative, left no doubt in Bruce's mind that whoever this guy was, he was the real deal. He had the means to back up saying something like 'your cooperation is not optional.' And he'd probably like doing it.

Bruce felt nauseated at that realization, and also at the reality of what this guy was saying. He'd suspected the Other Guy hadn't been gentle with the muggers, but having it thrown at him so abruptly stung. The guns pointed at his face didn't help matters either.

"Um," he started, unsure of what to say. This guy might be someone Bruce didn't want to mess with, but he was also _clearly _somehow misinformed about what he was dealing with, if he thought threatening Bruce with a gun was a smart move.

Bruce started there. "That's not a good idea," he said, gesturing to the gun. These people were going to get killed if they weren't careful.

As was his irritating custom, Bruce actually _cared _about that. Just like he cared about the petty criminal the Other Guy had apparently...eliminated.

"You're right," Mr. Whitecoat said easily, agreeably. "But I see little choice in the matter." He paused. "Would it not be easier to cooperate? Safer, perhaps, given your reaction when we use force?"

Maybe he _wasn't _misinformed. Bruce frowned. This guy _had_ to know about his condition, and he apparently wasn't above being a manipulative asshole. That combination didn't bode well, but Bruce was unwilling to give in that easily. "I'm not going anywhere without clothes." He had to feel around, see how much leeway he had, what kind of demands he could make.

Whitecoat shrugged indifferently. "Certainly. That can be arranged."

Abruptly, he turned and led his minions away. The door slammed and locked behind him, and Bruce was left in the dark, confused and overwhelmed.

He realized then how stiffly he'd been sitting, how _hard _it was to stay upright, and he slowly rolled onto his side, trying to mitigate the pain in his muscles and his exhaustion. Neither was particularly easy to ignore, though, and although he closed his eyes, he couldn't fall asleep. He was too wound up, too worried about what awful situation he'd gotten himself into now.

Some time later, Mr. Whitecoat came by, with his two goons and an outfit comprised entirely of gray sweatpants material. No shoes.

Bruce supposed he wouldn't be running anywhere, then. But at least he had clothes. He wasn't being treated entirely like an animal. His guard slipped down a minute amount, completely beneath his notice.

He took the offered clothes and dressed silently, then let Mr. Whitecoat lead him out of the cell and into a dimly lit, dank corridor. It was lined on both sides with cells similar to Bruce's, but it was impossible to tell if they were occupied or not.

In the hall, Bruce got a better look at the guards. They were uniformed, though not in anything recognizable. Paramilitary, maybe, or secret service of some sort. They were both armed and completely silent but for the loud thud of their boots on the corridor floor.

The three of them led Bruce to a flight of stairs, which they took up for a while, until they exited onto a floor that was several stories above where they'd been before, yet Bruce still thought they were underground—the air still had that damp quality. Every door they went through had to be unlocked, and every one was manned by armed guards. Then, they took Bruce into what seemed to be a medical exam room.

Bruce's heart rate ratcheted up a notch. This really was his worst nightmare, and it was coming true. He wasn't just a prisoner, he was going to be an _experiment_.

He stopped, legs no longer willing to move forward.

_They can't hurt you. They can't do _anything _to you, because you'll just transform..._

It was obvious, right?

But if he transformed, these three men could be killed. Not to mention anyone else in this compound. They'd passed other guards, other scientists, as they'd traversed the building. All of them were in danger.

And he had no way to know if he could control himself, once he transformed, to find his way out here without killing someone. Maybe someone innocent.

So he'd have to try to _not _transform.

His jailors turned to face him, one guard tugging on his arm impatiently, and Bruce took the opportunity to speak up. "Hey, this is, uh. I don't think—"

They ignored him. Both guards grabbed him by his upper arm and dragged him across the room, tossing him roughly into a folding chair.

He was unaccustomed to being treated so roughly, and found their faith in him startling.

_Or their faith in themselves_. He'd been 'Hulked Out' before, when he'd been...shot. And yet they'd contained him somehow, and now he was here. Maybe they weren't too concerned about roughing him up, because they knew they could handle his alter ego.

The implications of that were enough to send a wave of dread straight to his stomach.

"Dr. Banner," Mr. Whitecoat said, "You will not need to speak again, unless you are spoken to."

The use of his title in contrast to the rest of what the guy had said threw him, The juxtaposition was almost surreal, how he could be so dehumanized and yet addressed with such respect.

It left him speechless, threw him off balance. He didn't know what to think.

Whitecoat looked Bruce up and down, then began to speak. "I am Dr. Henry Petersen, and I am in charge of the scientists here at," he paused, "Well, that is irrelevant. Our facility is both well camouflaged and well funded. You have come to us through a network of connections. I must say, you're surprisingly difficult to track, given your...condition."

Yeah, all of that was _really _useful information. It was all non-information, really. Bruce snorted, "Right, sounds great." He stood, pushing the chair back with a screech. "Tell me why I shouldn't just bust out of here. You've seen me, right? You know what I can do." The threat felt awkward on his tongue, the bravado just that. Threatening was not his forte, and Bruce knew it was laughably obvious to everyone in the room.

"I have not seen it personally," Petersen replied evenly, "But the reports I have seen were quite...extraordinary." He took off the glasses perched on his nose and polished them roughly on his coat. "As to why you should not just 'bust out of here,' I am sure you are aware that this facility is heavily populated. Many potential casualties."

_Thanks for making that abundantly clear._

"And, of course, there is the fact that we seek to help you."

That caught Bruce off guard. "What?"

"Your condition is extraordinary, yes, but it must also be a curse," Petersen said. "One that we may be able to heal you of."

Bruce narrowed his eyes. "Oh, yeah, I'm really getting that kind of vibe from you. The guns and the dark cell in the basement really made me think, 'these guys just want to help.' No way." If they wanted to help, they had a really funny way of showing it.

Petersen shrugged, indifferent to Bruce's words. "Our work with gamma radiation has been quite remarkable, and I feel your condition may be reversible."

_Gamma radiation? How much do they know about me? How did they learn any of it? _There were only so many places they could have come by the information. Bruce asked hesitantly, "How...?"

Petersen smiled. It was not a gentle, kind expression. "I have been interested in you for some time, Dr. Banner. The incident in Manhattan brought you to my attention. After that, it was only a matter of...making your acquaintance. As it happens, my goal is shared among many parties, including certain...military officials, who were more than happy to fund my project. Made some suggestions on how to proceed, even. Once you had been located, I flew into the area to meet you. It took a few hours to prepare this facility for our purposes, and now here we are."

This guy clearly didn't just want to help. Bruce wasn't stupid or naive enough to think that, not given the circumstances of his stay here. And this guy had been apparently stalking him since the Chitauri attack, and that had been _months _ago. Bruce asked, "And what's in this for you? 'Helping' me?"

"Scientific and personal satisfaction?" Petersen suggested, eyebrow raised.

Bruce didn't buy that for a second. "What's _really _in it for you? Money?"

But Petersen didn't answer. Instead, he said, "I believe I can help you. Will you let me?"

The answer was a definite 'no.' But the armed guards, the way this place seemed to be locked down, and the very fact that Bruce was hesitant to endanger anyone meant that he at the very least needed time to think about this. He was being manipulated, and he _knew _it, but there wasn't much he could do about without more information.

So he nodded once, stiffly. Maybe if he played along, he could get a bed and a meal, at the very least.

But Petersen shot that dream down when he gestured at the table. "Hop on up." Then he walked to an intercom box on the wall, into which he said, "You can come in."

Almost immediately, the room was swarmed with more people in white coats. One of them told Bruce to take his shirt off. Another one herded him onto the table. The number of different accents in the room was astounding—Bruce heard at least six or seven.

And then, someone was jamming a needle in the crook of his elbow, and Bruce barely had time to choke out a warning about the toxic nature of his blood before someone had stuck another, larger needle in his upper arm.

"Hey—" he objected, but he immediately started to feel woozy. Very woozy.

He considered how many ethics violations were going on here.

Within a minute, he was unconscious.

Again.

* * *

He woke up in his cell, with a throbbing headache and a bruise at his elbow where they'd stuck him with a needle. Also with the taste of bile in his mouth.

Wonderful all around, then.

On the plus side, he was still dressed. And while he'd been unconscious, someone had come into his cell and changed the light bulb, so he could at least see his surroundings.

They sucked. Dirt floor, metal door, metal cot, hole in the floor that Bruce assumed was supposed to be a stand in for a toilet.

Right, and he was supposed to believe he was an honored guest here or something, that they were going to help him with his condition. Keeping him in a dirt cell was _really _going a long way towards helping that illusion along. So was drugging him.

How stupid did they think he was?

He was contemplating that when he heard footsteps approaching, and then the cell door opened.

It was Petersen, accompanied this morning (_was _it morning?) by two new armed guards.

"Come with me," he said.

Bruce was starting to hate that phrase. And he wanted some answers before he went _anywhere_. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"A few routine tests," Petersen deflected.

"You drugged me," Bruce pointed out acidly.

Petersen shrugged. "We wanted to keep you calm during the proceedings."

Well, they'd succeeded. He'd been so calm, he'd been unconscious. That didn't make it any less infuriating, though. Also, it was worrisome, because there weren't a lot of sedatives that worked on him. The ones that did were extremely dangerous. These guys apparently had no qualms about pulling out all the stops.

Bruce swallowed once, clamping down on his irritation. "Right. Could you maybe _not _do that in the future?"

"Of course," Petersen acquiesced. Bruce got the distinct feeling he was lying through his teeth. "Now, please follow me."

Despite his reservations, when Petersen turned and walked down the hall, Bruce followed along obediently.

Petersen led him up to a different room this time, one with no medical equipment. In fact, it seemed to be an office of some sort. Petersen walked over to the desk and sat down, gesturing for Bruce to take a seat across from him.

He did. A moment later, a woman in a white coat came in, carrying a metal tray. The smell of breakfast wafted over to Bruce, and his mouth watered. She set the tray on the desk in front of him and bustled out of the room. Bruce looked the food over. It _seemed _okay—applesauce, eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice—but after their little incident last night, he didn't trust it, as much as his stomach was cramping with hunger.

"Please, eat," Petersen said.

Bruce pushed the tray towards him. "After you."

Petersen gave him a sour look, but lifted the spoon off the tray and took a bite from each compartment. "Are you happy now?"

Well, no (this whole situation _sucked_, and Bruce was beginning to suspect that he wasn't going to be happy for a long time), but Bruce nodded and took the tray back. He began to devour the food greedily.

As he ate, Petersen talked. "Last night, we ran an MRI, a CAT scan, an ECG, an EEG, a series of X-rays, blood tests, and urinalysis." He lifted a file off the corner of the desk. "I have the results here." He pointedly didn't offer to let Bruce see them.

"And?" Bruce asked. The list of tests was intimidating, and he didn't like that they'd taken his blood. The last person who'd gotten a hold of that had done some pretty awful things with it, and this guy was a _lot _less trustworthy.

"And I think I can help you," Petersen answered.

"How?" Bruce asked.

But Petersen declined to answer. Instead, he said, "When you're finished, we can begin."

Okay, this farce had gone on long enough. "Look, I don't know who you are or what you're doing. I don't know anything about you. I just know that you're keeping me in a cell, that you drugged me to the gills last night, and now you want me to trust you to do...what? I don't consent to this." He got to his feet, intending to make a break for it while he was mostly unguarded. He could hear his heart beating in his ears, could feel the rage itching to get out.

Petersen folded his hands on the desk in front of him. "Dr. Banner," he said, his voice suddenly cold, "Your consent is hardly relevant."

Bruce felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. It was pretty much what he'd expected, but that didn't soften the blow.

He was about to reply, but he noticed how heavy his head had gotten.

"You drugged the food?" Bruce asked, tongue awkward in his mouth. He fell to his knees. This didn't make _sense_. He'd had Petersen taste the food...

"No," Petersen answered. "The juice."

And then Bruce was out.

Again.


	2. Rat in a Cage

**Again, many thanks to irite for being betatastic.**

**Those warnings at the beginning of the last chapter? Still in effect. I'll tell you when they're not.**

* * *

He woke up on a table, clad only in a pair of sweatpants, with straps around his arms and legs. That fact alone was enough to send his heart rate up.

The monitor attached to his finger that was tracking his pulse began to beep dangerously.

"Calm down, Dr. Banner," came a male voice from the left in a different accent from Petersen's.

Bruce turned his head to the side, trying to see who was talking. He couldn't.

And someone telling him to 'calm down' in this situation was kind of the opposite of helpful, given the fact that he was currently strapped to a table.

His heart rate kicked up another notch.

"Dr. Banner!" the man insisted, sounding irritated.

_Oh, yeah, I'm sure this is a huge inconvenience for him_.

Still, Bruce did his best to calm down. He stopped pulling against the restraints and let himself go limp. Slowly, the beeping of his heart monitor slowed. Across the room, he could hear small sounds; the clink of metal on metal, a running faucet, someone tearing off a paper towel.

"Who are you?" Bruce asked, when it became evident that his new companion had no intention of speaking.

"One of Dr. Petersen's assistants," he said, declining to give a name. His accent seemed to originate from southeast Asia, but Bruce couldn't do much better than that.

"Oh," he replied. The vagueness did little to put him at ease. "And what are you doing?"

The unnamed assistant didn't answer. So Bruce tried a different angle. "What do you keep dosing me with?"

No answer. Irritated, now, Bruce asked, "How long was I out?"

"About twelve hours," the assistant answered, to Bruce's surprise. "We overdid it a bit, but Petersen figured you might try to bolt after you'd gotten some food in you." Then, he said, "He's ready," presumably into one of the intercom units like Petersen had used last night. He certainly wasn't talking to Bruce.

A moment later, Bruce heard a metal door bang open on his other side, so he turned his head, hoping he could see to that side. He could, and Petersen was there, with four other scientists. One was pushing a cart, on which was a scattering of medical paraphernalia. One was carrying a clipboard. All of them were wearing full protective gear, including face shields and neoprene gloves.

Bruce suddenly had a very bad feeling.

"Dr. Banner," Petersen greeted him.

"I thought you were going to stop drugging me," Bruce said in response.

"Ah. Well, yes. I'm sorry about that, but we're still developing the compound, you see, and we need to get a feel for its effects. And for different dosing mechanisms. We know its capabilities at the max dosage, but we're working on more subtle dosing. As you'll see."

Great. They were using experimental drugs on him. Without his consent. Not that it was surprising—Petersen had been pretty explicit about the 'your consent is irrelevant' thing.

Bruce wished Petersen would stop with the whole 'gracious host' act. He'd made it pretty clear at this point that he was more or less evil. And shady. And unethical. Acting like he had Bruce's best interests at heart was really just...disconcerting.

But Bruce didn't say as much, because at the moment, he had more pressing concerns. Like the group of scientists wearing full protective gear. As if they were expecting to be exposed to a biohazard...such as his blood. And the fact that he was strapped to a table.

Instead, he asked, "What are you going to do?"

Petersen made a small, thoughtful noise. "Well, you see, last night, we were able to get a number of baseline readings. Which were very helpful. But now I need to get a look at how things look when you're under stress."

"And, um, how do you intend to go about getting that data?" Bruce asked, keenly aware of how completely powerless he was in his current position. He gave the straps another experimental tug.

"Stress test," Petersen replied, reaching for...something.

Bruce frowned. Those usually involved a treadmill. Not...a scalpel. Like the one Petersen was holding in a gloved hand.

_Shit._

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bruce said, pulling back as much as he could. He heard the beeping on the heart monitor pick up again. "You can't—"

"I can't what, Dr. Banner?" Petersen interrupted, voice flat. "Perform a necessary test?"

"No," Bruce insisted. "I don't consent to this, I never said you could do _any _of this." He pulled on the straps harder, but they didn't give.

"This is for your own good, though," Petersen said, placing the tip of the scalpel on Bruce's bare chest, more focused on the outcome of his experiment than on the man on the table.

"My blood!" Bruce exclaimed, well aware that his tone was reaching a pitch that could be best described as 'hysterical.' The beeping of his heart monitor agreed. "It's poisonous!"

"We are aware of that," Petersen replied, the epitome of cool collectedness. "We've taken all possible precautions."

"Right," Bruce choked out. "Sure. Okay, but there's still one problem. I'm—I'm a _monster_, and if I don't calm down—"

"If you have an issue with my methodology, please take it up with our benefactor," Petersen said. "He was fairly specific about this particular point."

Bruce was so focused on Petersen and the cold touch of metal against his chest, on his racing heart, that he didn't process that like he maybe should have. And he was also completely unprepared when one of the two scientists, who'd moved around to the other side of him, stabbed him with a needle.

The sudden, sharp pain cut off his increasingly-frantic rambling, and then the drug hit his system.

And then he was unconscious.

Again.

* * *

"Have you heard from Bruce today?" Pepper asked Tony, bustling into the living room with a frown on her face.

"No," Tony answered, taking a swig from his impressively large cup of coffee. "Why would I have?"

"It's Thanksgiving tomorrow," Pepper answered. "He said he'd visit."

Tony glanced at the calendar app on his tablet. "Huh. So it is. Have _you_ heard from him?"

Pepper nodded tensely. "A few days ago. Sunday. I called and invited him to come to town for the holiday. He agreed, and I told him that I'd send your plane to pick him up. He said he was on the border of Belarus but could make it to Moscow without any problems. He was supposed to fly into New York tonight."

Tony shrugged. "So maybe he's running late. Late takeoff or something." Bruce was a big boy, he could take care of himself.

Pepper evidently didn't think that, though. "He never made it to the airport, Tony," Pepper said through pursed lips. "Your pilot just called me. They've been waiting for hours, they had to get off the runway."

Now Tony frowned. "That's not like him." Bruce had lived in the Tower for a month after what the press had dubbed 'the Battle of Manhattan,' just long enough for him to figure out that he absolutely hated living there. Then he'd gone off on some glorious, tree-hugging, amends-making mission to eastern Europe, leaving Tony sad and bereft of his science buddy. Still, in that month, Tony had gotten to know him well enough to know that he was disturbingly responsible, pathologically punctual, and prone to apologizing when it wasn't actually necessary. He wouldn't just blow off a privately chartered plane if he said he would be there.

"No," Pepper agreed. "It's not. I tried calling his cell, but he didn't answer. I left a message, but he didn't call back."

"That's _really _not like him," Tony said. He set his tablet aside, giving Pepper his full attention. "What do you think happened?"

Pepper shook her head. "I don't know. But I'm worried."

"Me too," Tony admitted. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen moodily. He sent Bruce a quick text message that read 'wtf dude,' and then he turned to Pepper. "How worried are you? Like, scale of one to ten?"

Considering, Pepper answered, "I'm not sure. Seven or eight."

Tony nodded. "Same." He sighed dramatically. "I could call...someone."

"Please," Pepper said, nibbling her bottom lip.

And how could he refuse that? Tony sighed again, then started scrolling through his contacts.

He stopped when he got to 'C'. For 'Capsicle.'

* * *

"This is for your own good, Dr. Banner," a voice said. Female, this time.

"You know," Bruce mumbled, scarcely coherent yet feeling pressed to respond. "I doubt that." Nothing that left him feeling this awful could possibly be for his own good. Then, as he became aware of the scorched desert that was his throat, "Water?"

A straw was placed at his lips, and Bruce took a long, cool drink. Then, belatedly, he turned his head aside, water dribbling down his chin. He remembered where he was. Remembered _everything. _ "Is it drugged?"

"No," the voice answered. "And neither's the IV fluids, in case you were wondering."

Bruce cracked his eyes open. He was still in the same medical exam room he'd been in before, still strapped down to the table. He was stiff, and sore, and starving—all he'd had to eat during his 'vacation' was a few bites of breakfast, and only god knew how long ago that had been. There was a tiny cut on his chest, almost imperceptible but for the slight sting when he inhaled, and there was a needle lodged in his arm, dripping saline into his veins.

Apparently, Petersen had just been warming up earlier. Bruce wasn't going to pretend to understand the method to the madness—and that's what this was—but if he had to guess, he'd say that Petersen had been trying to stress him out a little bit, probably to supplement his baseline readings.

Which meant next time, he'd probably go further than just one tiny, shallow cut.

"Let me up?" Bruce asked, after a moment of listening to her move around the room and watching the steady _drip drip drip_.

"I can't," she replied, stepping next to him and disconnecting the IV carefully.

"It was worth a shot," he mumbled, closing his eyes again. Maybe he could just go back to sleep. Maybe this was just a nightmare, and if he woke up again, he'd be somewhere safe.

"You need to stay awake," the woman said sharply.

Bruce turned his head away, as if doing so could block out her voice. "I don't think so."

The woman gave a huff. "He's awake," she said irritably. "Don't know for how long."

It was getting fairly annoying, being spoken about in the third person. Especially since whenever someone did that, it was followed by unpleasant things.

The door clanged open, and Bruce growled, eyes still closed, "Drug me one more time—"

"And what?" Petersen asked, bored. "You'll...lay there?"

Bruce's eyes snapped open, and for a moment, his vision was tinged with green. "Are you _stupid? _You're playing with fire, here!" He strained against his bonds, acutely aware of how _close _the Other Guy was.

"I am only trying to help you," Petersen stated. "I can give you control. The serum we're injecting you with suppresses the gamma radiation in your cells. If we get the dosage correct, we can stop your...transformation. Perhaps permanently." He paused. "But we need to do _tests_."

Bruce fell back against the metal of the table, breathing heavily. His heart monitor was beeping, alarmed, but he looked at Petersen. "I don't believe you." _Something_ was itching in the back of Bruce's mind, it seemed like _something _about this should be lighting up in neon letters, but he was so _tired_ and _stressed _that he just couldn't put the pieces together. The best he could do was 'I don't believe you.' Not that there were a lot of reasons he _should _believe Petersen, but...hadn't he said something? Something that should have sent up red flags by now?

Something about how this endeavor was funded. But it just wouldn't come together.

"You will," Petersen replied simply, distracting Bruce from his near-epiphany. To one of his assistants, he asked, "Are you ready?"

"The new dose is prepared," she answered. Bruce turned his head, and saw that she, like Petersen, was wearing full protective gear. "It's been adjusted according to the data from the last test."

"Right," Petersen said. "Then let's proceed." He picked up his scalpel.

"No!" Bruce objected. "This isn't a _test_. I don't know what—"

His words were cut off abruptly when Petersen placed the blade of the scalpel over the tiny incision on Bruce's chest, then pressed down and dragged it upwards.

"This is for your own good, Dr. Banner," the woman said, asinine and irrelevant, and then the pain came, deep and sharp. Bruce choked, bile rising in his throat.

"Get the sample," Petersen barked. Bruce felt a needle at his elbow, heard blood filling a vial.

Then someone jabbed another needle into his shoulder.

And then his vision went dark and he went limp.

A moment later, though, it cleared. He was lying on the table, panting, blood dripping down his chest and stomach, but conscious.

And not green.

He turned his head to the side and puked.

* * *

"I tracked his phone. It's just inside the Russian border," Tony said. "It hasn't moved in the last twelve hours."

Steve looked at the holographic map Tony had thrown up in the middle of the room. "How long would it take us to get there?"

"In my plane, about nine hours to Moscow. Then we'd have to drive." He paused. "I could get there faster on my own."

"But I can't fly," Steve pointed out. "And nothing personal, but I'm not letting you carry me."

"Fair enough," Tony agreed. At one point, he might have resented the implication that he couldn't hack this alone, but nowadays he tended to be a little more cautious. Came with almost dying after carrying a nuke into space on his back, he figured. He looked at the map, then back at Steve. "SHIELD...has those jets. Those are pretty quick."

"You think we should call in Romanoff and Barton on this? That might make it official...but then, SHIELD would probably want to know that Dr. Banner's gone missing."

Tony nodded. He didn't like asking for help, but in this case, it seemed like it wasn't optional. He wanted to figure this out ASAP. "You wanna give them a call or should I?"

Steve hastily pulled out his phone. "I don't think Director Fury likes you; this'd probably come better from me."

Within forty-five minutes, SHIELD had been briefed on the situation and had decided it would be expeditious to loan out Agents Barton and Romanoff along with a quinjet. It was strongly implied that Barton and Romanoff's involvement in this was mainly to make sure Tony returned SHIELD's property promptly, without experimenting on it first. Tony wasn't going to complain. They'd given him the jet, probably because wanted to know where Bruce had gone, but didn't seem too inclined to get involved more than that just yet. At the moment, it looked like they were going on a mission to find Bruce and bring him a pair of pants, so Tony didn't blame them. But it might be something worse, so he figured that another two people might come in handy, too. SHIELD probably felt the same way.

Tony briefed the two newcomers on the situation, finishing with, "It might be nothing, but call me paranoid. I just have a feeling." Bruce wasn't the type to blow him off, and on a holiday no less.

Clint shrugged. "You're paranoid. But that doesn't mean that there's not something shady going on here." He looked at Natasha. "You're our resident Russian, do you know what might be going on?"

Natasha shook her head. "I haven't been in the area in years." She looked up at Tony. "Do you have anything to go on but a missed flight and a lost cell phone?"

Tony narrowed his eyes. "As a matter of fact, I do." He hesitated, casting a quick look at Steve, before he said, "There've been some reports of something...strange. In the local papers. The translation's a little awkward, but I think it's saying that a man in that area was killed when he got thrown into the side of a building. He was last seen with two friends, but they're both missing."

"And you think, what, that Bruce did it?" Steve asked, annoyed that Tony hadn't mentioned this earlier. He quickly corrected himself, "I mean, Hulk."

Tony shrugged. "It takes a lot of force to throw someone into a building hard enough to completely crush their ribcage. I think it's a possibility."

"So he Hulks Out, and then...what?" Natasha asked.

"No idea," Tony answered. "He might just be wandering around the Russian countryside with no pants. But we need to find him. We start with the phone."

She and Clint nodded. Clint said, "We can be ready to go in an hour."

"Make it thirty minutes," Tony replied. "I'll meet you guys in Russia."

He went to suit up.

* * *

"This is for your own good, Dr. Banner," Petersen said.

Bruce didn't answer. There was no point.

Yesterday...yesterday, he'd answered. And it hadn't done any good then. He didn't think today would be any different.

They'd been 'testing' their new compound, and Petersen assured him that they were getting somewhere. That they were almost done. That soon, he'd have a cure in his hand. The world would be a better place. They just had to test.

And then he'd cut him again.

And Bruce would scream. He'd clench his eyes shut, feel his muscles tense, ready to grow and burst free of the restraints holding him to the table. His heart would pound, and a roar would start in his chest, clawing up his throat—

And then someone would shove a needle in his arm. His vision would gray, sometimes go completely black, and then he'd be back. Completely human and covered in blood and sweat, sometimes puke.

This was necessary. Petersen said so. He said they needed to test. They needed to see how Bruce would react to different levels of stress. They needed to push him, push his limits. This was the only way to do that.

Some part of Bruce, somewhere deep inside his mind, where it was still and dark and quiet, knew that was bullshit. There were ways to do this that didn't involve _torture_, that didn't involve keeping him in a dirt cell and tying him to a table. That part of him said he hadn't consented to this, that this was violating his rights, dehumanizing him. But that part of him was drowned out by his screams, by the constant reassurance that 'this was for his own good.'

At first, he'd resisted. He'd pulled against his restraints, had yelled. Had told Petersen _exactly _where he could shove his 'this is for your own good' crap. It had made no difference. Petersen had continued on as if Bruce were a quiet, willing subject. Had answered Bruce's objections with cold silence. And slowly, Bruce began to quiet.

As his concentration was taken up more and more with the bite of the blade into his body, he had less and less energy to react. He weakened, grew fatigued. His protestations got him nowhere, so what was the point?

By the time they wrapped on the first day, he'd gone entirely silent.

That night, they'd put a stitch or two into a few of the deeper cuts, cleaned him up, and brought him back to his cell, where he'd passed out practically before they'd shut the door on him.

That night, all he heard in his dreams was the hollow, empty phrase, 'this is for your own good.'

He woke up shaking.

Day two began at what Petersen said was 8:00 AM. Bruce had no choice but to believe him—he had no way of knowing the time. And it had gone exactly like day one. Except day two was worse. The cuts were deeper as he acclimated to the pain, as his body forgot that it wasn't supposed to feel this way.

On the second day, as he slipped further and further away from himself, he found that he was _listening. _Obeying. It was easier, when he was being cut to ribbons anyway.

Yesterday, Bruce had scoffed, had assumed that Petersen had no idea what he was doing, was recklessly endangering himself and everyone in this compound. But he'd actually managed to keep the Other Guy at bay. Bruce had to give him that. Which had led Bruce, by the start of the second day, to question his own assumptions. Maybe, he came to believe, this _was _necessary. Maybe it _was_, despite the pain, for his own good. He never would have been brave enough to try a cure like this on his own, so maybe it needed outside intervention to work. Maybe it could work, maybe Bruce hadn't run through all the possibilities on his own.

The scalpel digging into his chest, just under his left collarbone, distracted him from that train of thought and he groaned as he felt the blood trickling down towards his armpit. But that was all; his exhausted nerves and drugged body couldn't muster up a more dramatic response.

"Again," he heard Petersen say, and then the blade dug in just below the last mark. The pain doubled, and Bruce gagged, feeling his bones reluctantly start to shift and slide under his skin.

"Hit him," Petersen commanded.

Bruce barely felt the injection this time, just felt the tension leave his body. He stayed completely conscious.

"That's enough for today," Petersen said, sounding pleased, watching the monitors. "Clean up in here, stitch anything that needs stitching, like yesterday. We'll begin again tomorrow morning at 8:00."

All of his assistants gave affirmatives, and then Petersen was gone, the door clanging shut behind him.

Bruce closed his eyes. His entire body _hurt_, both from the cuts and the strain of the Other Guy's near-misses. He was sticky with blood, his poisonous blood, and he could feel several cuts still oozing slow streams of the stuff onto the table beneath him. Yesterday, most of the cuts had been shallow, had stopped bleeding on their own in minutes. Not so today.

"We're not done?" he mumbled, clinging to consciousness by a thread. Petersen had _promised _they were almost done. He'd _promised_. This was for Bruce's own good, and he'd _promised_...

"Couple more tests tomorrow," a female voice said, cold and impersonal. Then, closer, "I'm going to clean you up. Like Jacobs did yesterday. Just stay still."

Bruce didn't know any of their names, and wasn't too interested in learning them. He tried not to flinch when he felt the cold, wet cloth on his skin, but he failed. He noticed, now, that he'd lost the rest of his clothes at some point. He wasn't sure when. He'd been dressed yesterday. Had he been dressed today?

When the curved suturing needle pierced his skin, up by his collarbone, Bruce flinched then, too.

The woman doing the stitches said nothing, though, and Bruce eventually lost count of how many she ended up putting in him. There were some near his collarbone, some on his right pec, and a line of them down the center of his chest. A few in his shoulder. There was no order to it. To the cuts. No pattern. That would have been predictable, and Petersen didn't want that. He wanted Bruce surprised.

It was weird, having stitches. Bruce had thought so yesterday, and the feeling only became more surreal as time passed. As it...really sunk in. Bruce hadn't needed stitches since the accident, as any injury severe enough to need stitches triggered the transformation, and his healing factor while transformed took care of the offending injury.

In a way, the stitches were reassuring. Proof. Petersen really _was _doing what was best for Bruce.

_See? It's all going to be okay._

_This is all going to lead to something._

When she'd finished the stitches and had cleaned him up, the woman slowly unbuckled the straps that had been holding Bruce to the table, watching him carefully. They were going to have to go to the incinerator, he knew, along with just about everything else in this room. Just like they had yesterday. One drop of his blood could kill someone, and he'd lost significantly more than one drop.

He was free, now, but too weak to do anything about it. Too weak to do anything but lay there. The woman called in another one of Petersen's assistants—a man (Jacobs, maybe?)—and the two of them managed to get Bruce into the familiar decontamination shower, ensuring that all of his blood was truly washed away. Then they dressed him, putting him back in the gray sweats that they seemed to have an endless supply of.

He was beyond caring about the humiliation, about the loss of autonomy. Now, he just wanted to sleep. Preferably forever.

The walk back down to his 'room' was lengthy, felt longer than it had yesterday, and Bruce was in and out of consciousness for most of it. He suspected that they'd had to drag him, because one minute, he was in the corridor and the next he was on his 'bed,' staring up at the ceiling, unsure how he got there.

Exhausted, he fell asleep almost instantly, despite the fact he was lying on cold metal.

Asleep, or maybe he fell unconscious.

Again.

* * *

"Got his phone," Tony said, voice coming out metallic from the suit's external speakers. JARVIS had managed to locate the thing in the near-complete darkness of pre-dawn. He picked it up. The battery was almost completely dead, but aside from that, it seemed to be in good condition, if perhaps a bit water damaged. Bruce had a missed call and a voicemail from Pepper, and one unread text message, Tony's thoughtful missive from a day ago. Tony deleted it.

Then he looked up at the others, who'd gathered around. "So. Do you guys think we should go talk to the locals, see if we can get a lead?"

Natasha shook her head, looking over Tony's shoulder. "I don't think that's going to be necessary."

"Why not?" Tony asked, perturbed. He thought it had been a good idea.

"Well," Steve said. "I think these gentlemen with the guns might have something to say."


	3. This is the song that never ends

**Irite is and will always be my best beta buddy.**

**Yup, this is still a warning zone. **

* * *

"Good morning, Dr. Banner," Petersen said.

Bruce jumped awake, launching into a sitting position. He hadn't heard the door open, had been too deeply asleep.

The sudden movement jarred all of the cuts littering his body, and he felt one or two open. The blood seeped through the thin material of his shirt, spreading in small, sticky red splotches. He blinked once, twice, looking down at his chest and watching the stains grow.

"Damn," Petersen muttered, sounding thoroughly put out. Then, to one of the members of his entourage, "Go get Jacobs, tell him to bring a decontamination kit."

One pair of boots thudded away down the hall.

To Bruce, Petersen asked, "How did you sleep?"

Bruce tried to answer, but his throat was too dry. He coughed, then tried again, still looking down. "Fine."

"Glad to hear it. We're going to finish testing today, if we can stick to the schedule."

Bruce nodded slowly. "Okay." He rubbed a hand across a particularly stiff muscle in his shoulder. "Are you..." he stared at the blood on his shirt, distracted, "Going to keep...?"

"I'm sorry, but it has to be done. It's for your own good, you know." He did not sound sorry at all, but that was mostly lost on Bruce at this point. It _was _for his own good. They were getting close, Petersen had promised, and soon they'd be done.

It was just going to be a little while longer, and then he'd be cured.

So Bruce nodded again. "Okay." His shoulders slumped minutely.

A moment later, a man, who Bruce presumed was Jacobs, showed up, wearing full protective gear and pushing a cart laden with various instruments and chemicals. Petersen snapped at him, "I thought I told you to make sure the cuts that needed stitches got taken care of."

Jacobs raised a defensive hand. "I didn't do the damn stitches last night. That was Reich. Chew _her _out if you need to chew out someone." He pushed past Petersen roughly, glaring at the other man. Then he stepped in front of Bruce. "Shirt off. Now."

Without a word, Bruce complied. It was easier that way.

They were just trying to help him, after all.

Jacobs cleaned the re-opened wounds, examining them. Then he picked up a suturing needle and added a few more stitches to the ones already littering Bruce's torso and upper arms. When he was finished, he tossed all of his materials, including Bruce's stained shirt, into a biohazardous waste bag. "There. Don't know what Reich was thinking, doesn't she know what the hell we're dealing with here?"

"Calm down," Petersen snapped from the doorway, sounding decidedly less than calm himself. "It's under control. I know you're tired, I know we're all a little sleep deprived here, and I'm sorry for the three AM wakeup call, but how was I supposed to know they'd notice he was missing this damn fast?" He shook his head, irritated, and Bruce noticed now how _tense _he seemed.

Also, did Petersen say someone had noticed he was missing? It had not even occurred to Bruce to expect that, to expect...a rescue? He'd been resigned to his fate since it had found him, had not even once considered escaping it, let alone being freed from it.

'Learned helplessness,' maybe, or just years of experience working against him.

Petersen interrupted Bruce's train of thought with a sharp, "Are you ready to get started?"

Bruce wasn't. He was starving, although it was hard to tell through the nausea rolling in his gut. He _hurt_, from his throbbing headache to his sore muscles and the sting of the cuts. And he wanted to know more about what had gotten them up at this early hour—they weren't supposed to start 'til 8:00. Petersen had said. But he nodded anyway. Ready or not, they could make him go where they wanted him. Might as well go on his own.

They led him back to the medical exam room he'd become so familiar with. It was as impersonal and sterile as it had been the last two mornings, with no evidence of what had happened the previous days.

Bruce made his way over to the exam table with a minimal amount of support from the goons Petersen had enlisted to drag him out of his cell. Climbing up was more of an effort, and he could feel some of his stitches pulling as he heaved himself up, but this time, at least, they held.

Petersen's myriad of assistants buckled him down with new restraints. His shirt had been put into the disposal bag that Jacobs had taken away, so he didn't have to worry about taking it off. He laid back and closed his eyes.

He opened them a few minutes later, when the door opened and Petersen entered with his entourage, all decked out in the protective gear Bruce had come to know and hate. Everyone else who'd been bustling around left the room.

"Who has the data analysis from last night?" Petersen asked. One of the assistants rushed over with a file, and they poured over that for about five minutes, muttering and making annotations. Then Petersen pointed to something on the page. "This is where we start, then." He looked at Bruce. "We're almost done. I promise." He picked up his scalpel.

Bruce closed his eyes.

* * *

"What?" Tony asked, frowning at everyone's somewhat bewildered looks. "We don't negotiate with terrorists. It's not the American way." He turned to Steve. "Right, Cap?"

Steve turned in a slow circle, taking in the scene around them. "I, uh. They _were _going to kill us, right?"

Natasha reloaded her sidearm. "Yeah, Cap, they were. Unless you think that being shot at is a friendly greeting." She walked over to one of the bodies and rolled him over. "These aren't Russian military. They look like some sort of..."

"Terrorists!" Tony exclaimed.

"Right," Natasha said, voice flat. She turned to Clint, who was digging an arrow out of one guy's back. "You want to call this in, or should I?"

"I need to get my arrows back," he said, smiling innocently.

Natasha glared at him, then sighed and pulled her phone out. To Steve and Tony, she said, "See if you can figure out where these guys came from. I'll see if SHIELD has anything to offer. Looks like this is definitely going to entail more than a pants delivery." She took a few steps away.

Tony and Steve set to digging through the pockets of the dead men. A process that, for Tony, was greatly hindered by the suit. He let Steve do most of the work.

The group had approached the assembled Avengers cautiously, until they'd gotten a good look at who they were dealing with, probably catching sight of either Tony or Steve's suits, neither of which was particularly subtle. Then they'd opened fire, without so much as a warning.

Clint and Natasha hasn't hesitated in firing back, and it had only taken Steve and Tony a second more to join the fray. The result was about twenty dead or unconscious terrorists, and one new ding in Tony's suit.

He was incredibly displeased.

Turning out their pockets didn't reveal anything of use. Their uniforms were dark gray, but unmarked. Tony gave a frustrated sigh. "Typical. Why couldn't one of them be carrying a map back to their secret headquarters?"

Then a light bulb went off in his head. "I'm an idiot." He directed Steve, gesturing at the nearest man (who seemed to be the leader of this little welcoming party; he had the biggest gun), "Grab his phone, would you?"

Steve complied, handing it over. Tony had JARVIS scan it, and with his help, cracking the PIN to unlock it took about five seconds. Then Tony handed it back to Steve, fumbling it slightly in his bulky metal fingers. "See if you can find a number for 'headquarters' or something."

"Sure," Steve agreed. He handed it back a moment later, frowning. "It's all in Russian."

Tony didn't speak Russian either.

Natasha finished up her phone call and headed back over to the group, just as Clint finished gathering his arrows. "Okay, so Fury did some digging, and he says there's been some activity in this region related to an international terrorist group—"

"Here," Tony interrupted, shoving the phone at her. "Could you look through this and tell me if any of these numbers point to 'headquarters' or something like that?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow, but took the phone. She looked at it for a moment before she said, "Here, this one," and handed it back with the number highlighted.

"Really?" Tony asked, incredulous. "You're screwing with me." Nothing was _ever _that easy. And what sort of idiot had 'headquarters' listed in their phone?

Natasha shrugged. "I'm not. It doesn't say 'headquarters,' though, it says 'main base line.' Now, like I was saying, Fury says there's been activity about a hundred miles from here related to an international terrorist group. Kidnappings, disappearances, that sort of thing. And then, one of their operatives was caught trying to smuggle a shipment of technetium across the India/Pakistan border last month—"

"JARVIS, see if you can find where that number goes," Tony interrupted again. Then, "Technetium? You're kidding, right?"

"No?" Natasha said, growing visibly irritated with his interruptions.

"What's that used for?" Clint asked.

Tony frowned. "It emits gamma radiation."

Everyone looked at each other with identical looks of dismay.

"You don't think..." Steve started, but trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence.

"I don't know what to think," Tony answered frankly. "Except something's going on here, and I don't like it. It looks like some secret terrorist group took Bruce, and they're doing _something _with gamma radiation. That doesn't add up to anything good."

"We don't know for sure that Bruce was...taken," Steve pointed out. "I mean," he looked down, "How could he be?"

It was a good point. Bruce didn't have to go anywhere he didn't want to. But Tony didn't like the implication.

"You're not suggesting Bruce went willingly, are you?" Tony asked harshly. "'Cause that's bullshit. He doesn't play with terrorists any more than we do." Unless he didn't have a choice. But _how _could he not have a choice? Bruce's alter ego could get him out of any unpleasant situation.

Maybe whoever had taken him had some way to keep the Hulk in check. And _that _was a terrifying thought.

"No," Steve answered. "It's just...there's something weird going on here."

"Sir," JARVIS said inside the helmet of the suit, interrupting Tony before he could come up with a clever reply, "I believe I have a location for you."

"Hit me, J."

JARVIS pulled a map into Tony's visual field, with a marker glowing about a hundred miles south and east of their current location.

"Send that map to the jet, would you?" Tony said.

"Of course, sir."

"What map?" Steve asked.

"The one I just sent to the jet, duh. The one that's going to lead us to their super-secret headquarters, so I hope." Tony shook his head. "I'll meet you guys there."

"Hold on," Steve said. "I think we should all go in together. We don't want to risk an ambush. These people knew we were coming here. Who knows what else they could have in store. And if they _did _take Bruce, then...we don't know what to expect from them."

Tony crossed his arms over his chest. In the suit, it was quite the feat of strength to do so, and he took a second to be proud of himself. "You think they knew we were coming? How?"

Steve shook his head. "I don't know how. But why else would they have been here, waiting for us?"

Lacking a good answer for that, Tony shrugged. "Bad luck? Maybe they were just coming back here to see if any evidence had been left behind from the initial—from when this crap started."

"That's possible," Natasha said. "But I think Steve's right. I think they were expecting us. Or at least expecting _someone_."

"Great," Tony groused. "Just what we needed. Evil terrorists rolling out the welcome mat."

"Could be worse," Clint pointed out.

"Yeah, how?" Steve asked.

Clint shrugged. "At least no one's being mind-controlled, right?"

It was a surprisingly good point.

* * *

Petersen had said they were almost done. But Petersen lied.

It had been another two hours of 'stress testing.' Bruce knew, because today, they'd angled the heart rate monitor towards him, and it had the date and time on it.

It said it was 22/11/2012. It said it was 6:30. It had been 4:30 when Bruce had gotten all hooked up.

The date was disturbing, because Bruce had thought he'd been here for three days. Now he knew it had actually been four. Today was Thanksgiving in America. Where he was supposed to be.

Explained why someone had noticed he was missing at least. Tony, probably. Or, more likely, Pepper.

He must have missed his flight, then. Bruce felt a brief pang of regret. He hoped Pepper would forgive him.

Bruce wondered where he'd lost a day's worth of time, but he figured he'd spent enough time unconscious recently that it could add up to an extra day. It also explained why he was so hungry. He knew he'd had IV fluids at least once, and probably more than that, but that didn't do much for how hungry he was.

Of course, feeding him was mostly futile, which Petersen probably knew. Bruce had already thrown up once today, nothing but acid and bile.

And the lack of food kept him weak. So it was win-win all around. Except for the part where Bruce suspected he might be starving to death.

Thinking about Thanksgiving did little to help that.

"Almost done, Dr. Banner," Petersen said, in that same cold, flat tone. The one that Bruce knew meant that they weren't almost done at all. "New dose calculations?"

"Here," Jacobs said, holding a printout up so Petersen could see it.

"Good, good," Petersen mumbled, looking it over. "Okay. I think we've got it. Just one more test."

That was new—Petersen hadn't promised 'one more test' yet. Bruce croaked, throat raw, "You promise?"

The testing today had been more brutal than even yesterday's. The cuts were deeper, spaced more closely together. Petersen had poured alcohol on some of them. But Bruce hadn't put up as much of a struggle. Petersen's hollow promise that 'this is for your own good' echoed in his mind, and he couldn't help but believe it. What choice did he have, when Petersen's experimentation was actually _working_. His concoction, whatever it was, was having more success holding back the Other Guy than anything of Bruce's creation ever had.

And wasn't a little bit of pain worth it, with the shining end result almost in sight?

Of course, it was significantly more than 'a little' pain, but Bruce was willing to overlook that.

"Yes," Petersen answered Bruce's question. "I promise. One more test, and then you'll be done."

That was reassuring. He was ready to be done now. So he closed his eyes and waited.

Bruce was thus completely unprepared when Petersen took the scalpel and drove it deep into his chest.

It _hurt_. Bright and sharp, and then deep, throbbing. Blood bubbled up around the blade, and the heart rate monitor kicked up. Petersen barked, "Hit him!"

The injection in his arm was completely lost amidst the pain emanating from his chest.

And his heart rate did not go down.

"Again!" Petersen snapped.

Bruce felt his bones and muscles starting to shift. His heart rate monitor started blaring an alarm.

Or maybe that was something else. Petersen's head whipped around, and Bruce's eyes followed sluggishly. There was a red light flashing over the door. "Damn it!" Petersen exclaimed. "I thought that detail would have held them off longer!"

Bruce didn't really have a lot of time to ponder that. The slight movement of his head had jarred his chest, which still had a scalpel buried in it. It flared with renewed white-hot agony, and though he heard Petersen almost screaming, "Again! Get the max dose ready!" Bruce wasn't really able to pay him much mind.

He was expanding, growing, growling.

His last thought before he transformed was, _Probably should have done more testing._

* * *

"Do we just knock on the door, do you think?" Clint asked, eyeing the structure in front of them.

An alarm started to blare inside.

"Nah, I think we're good," Tony answered. They'd had to land the jet almost a half mile away, and they'd walked the rest of the way. Walking in the suit was onerous, and it had made him grumpy. Which was the perfect mindset for taking on some terrorist organization in the middle of nowhere, so at least there was that.

Apparently, someone had spotted them during their trek and had sent back word to sound the alarm.

Fantastic.

The building they were assembled in front of looked like a warehouse, but JARVIS told Tony that he detected a large hollow space underground. It was likely that there were several stories underneath this external structure.

"You guys want to go in, then?" Natasha asked, sounding bored.

"Lemme just get the door," Tony said. He powered up a repulsor and blasted it into pieces. Then he gestured to Clint. "Ladies first."

"Fuck off, Stark," Clint mumbled. But he pushed through the door, immediately looking for a good vantage point where he could start to pick people off.

Steve went in next, shield raised. Natasha followed him, and Tony brought up the rear.

Inside the compound, it was chaos. People were running around, alarms were going off, and for a moment, no one seemed to notice the intruders. Until they did, and bullets were flying everywhere.

"We need to clear the room!" Steve called.

"No shit!" Tony answered. He looked around, letting JARVIS analyze their targets. "There's thirty people on this floor, not counting us."

"Well, let's go," Natasha said and then dove into the fray.

An arrow whizzed by Tony's head, nearly clipping him, and he turned around long enough to flip Clint the bird before he followed Natasha.

For five minutes, they worked their way towards the center of the room where JARVIS reported a doorway led to a staircase. It seemed to Tony like it was easier than it should have been, with the terrorists often just throwing down their weapons and running when confronted with an Avenger. Like they didn't want to waste time by fighting.

The ease of their entry did not make Tony complacent, though. It just made him worry. What were all these people running from?

He had some ideas, and none of them were good.

Upon reaching the stairs, Steve motioned for them all to follow him down. He didn't mention how weird their infiltration had been. He just said, "Clint, Natasha, watch our backs. Tony, what're we looking at?"

He let JARVIS scan the staircase. "Armed guards outside the door to the next floor. But, uh, don't you think it's weird—"

Steve cut him off with, "Not now. I think we need to get moving." He led them down the stairs.

The guards didn't pose much of a challenge, and when they were on the first basement level, Tony scanned again, having JARVIS pull up a blueprint of the building from their mainframe. "This floor's all offices." A few people ran by, but none of them were armed. They looked like typical paper pushers, and they seemed eager to escape. There was an alarm blaring, and someone was saying something in Russian over the PA, but it was so garbled that even Natasha couldn't catch it, prompting her to make a face and wave her gun threateningly at the paper pushers.

"Leave them," Steve instructed, gesturing at the office workers. "We need to keep moving."

They ducked back into the staircase.

And then Tony heard it. Something that sounded an _awful _lot like a...roar. Followed by a _crash_.

"You guys hear that?"

The look on Steve's face clearly indicated that he _had_. "Yeah. Let's go."

They moved down the stairs. The guards on the next level down had abandoned their posts, and Tony didn't blame them—the sounds coming from behind the door were chaos. Screams, shattering glass, muffled _thuds_.

"This floor is labs," Tony said, looking at the display JARVIS had pulled up. He felt suddenly sick. "Medical type stuff." The implications of this was not lost on the others, who all looked equally ill.

Another _roar _sounded from behind the door.

And then Steve stepped forward and opened it cautiously.

It had _sounded _like chaos; the reality was worse. The walls were cracked and dented. Water was spraying from broken pipes. There were bodies lying in the hallways, most of them dressed in white coats. One or two were wearing the kind of gear that would protect them completely from biohazardous contamination.

There was another roar, and Tony had no doubt that it was Hulk. "This way, guys." He led them towards the sound, moving past Steve.

"Hold on," Steve said. "We need a plan."

"The plan's to get Bruce the hell out of here," Tony snapped.

"He's not Bruce right now," Steve pointed out.

"He's got a point," Natasha said. "Bruce has some control, but I think it's only if he initiates the transformation himself. I...I don't think he did." She cast a look at the bodies in the hallway.

Tony rolled his eyes—which they couldn't see—and clanged down the hall. "Screw that, I'm going in."

And, ignoring them, he did.

He rounded the corner and found Hulk. He was towering over a man who was wearing contamination proof gear and holding a gigantic, loaded syringe in one shaking hand. His other hand hung uselessly at his side, his shoulder dislocated. But he wasn't backing down.

"Hey!" Tony called out, not liking the looks of this whole situation.

Hulk turned to face him, and the man took the opportunity to lunge forward and jab the enormous needle into Hulk's upper leg.

With an aggravated growl, Hulk backhanded the man roughly; he flew down the hall, landing with a sickening 'crack' as his head slammed against the linoleum flooring.

And then Hulk keeled over, shrinking back down into Bruce.

_Well_, Tony thought. _I guess that gives us _some _answers._

* * *

"Well, if SHIELD had better encryption, that wouldn't have been a problem, right? Someone needs to make sure no one's doing things like, oh, I don't know, intercepting your damn e-mail and _telling the terrorists we're coming_." A male voice. Familiar.

"Whatever. Run it by Fury. He's pissed enough that it happened, he might actually let you try to fix it." A female voice. Also familiar.

"Be quiet, you two. I think he's waking up." A different female voice, also familiar. This was good. Familiar was safe, even if he couldn't quite place _who_ was here yet.

"Bruce. Wake up."

Despite the apparent safety, Bruce did not want to.

"Come on, man."

Bruce shook his head minutely.

Someone laughed, though it sounded thin and strained.

"Should we call a doctor?" someone else asked. "Bring him to the hospital?"

"Oh, right, Cap, that'll really help right now," the first voice snarked.

"Tony, get away from him," a woman demanded. Pepper. That was Pepper.

Bruce cracked his eyes open, then jerked backwards when he was greeted with a face about six inches from his own. "What the hell? Tony!"

It didn't come out like that—his throat was all but sandpaper—but Tony got the point and leaned back in his chair a bit. "Sorry. Just making sure you were still alive." He held out a bottle of water, flinching as Pepper smacked the back of his head.

Bruce took the water, then pulled himself up so that he was sitting, his memories rushing back in a tidal wave that made his breath catch in his throat. He coughed.

"Are you okay?" Pepper asked immediately, half-standing and leaning around Tony to place a hand on Bruce's forehead.

He flinched back, causing Pepper to flinch in turn. Bruce immediately apologized, "I'm sorry." He paused. "I'm fine. Thanks."

He was stiff, and sore, but more or less whole—the cuts were gone, as was the stab wound in his chest. Well. He could always count on the Other Guy for that. Bruce opened the bottle and took a drink, pointedly not looking at any of the people in the room with him. It was fairly crowded, and he didn't know if he could deal with that right now. He set the bottle aside and stared down at his lap.

"Bruce," Steve prompted. "We, uh. We have to talk about this." To Pepper, he said, "We're going to need a few minutes. SHIELD says this is classified."

Pepper obligingly left the room, casting one last worry-filled glance at Bruce.

"I'm going to tell her anyway," Tony pointed out. Steve shushed him.

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Bruce muttered, "We really don't have to talk about this." He'd be fine if he never had to talk about it. In fact, that would be preferable.

"They recorded everything," Tony said, voice dark. "We know what happened. And we know why." He looked ill.

Bruce flinched as it came back to him. What they'd done. And then, what _he'd _done. His first question, then, was "Did I—?"

Tony interrupted, "You don't need to feel guilty. They got what was coming to them."

Flatly, Bruce said, "They're dead." Of course they were.

"Yeah," Natasha answered him, looking at him closely. "Petersen and the rest of his team. And a few other people, too." Well. She didn't pull punches, did she?

Bruce felt one of his hands clench into a fist. "Did you save his research?" Petersen was the only one who knew what he was working on. And if he was gone, then...so was any hope of a cure.

"Research? That wasn't _research_, that was _torture_," Tony corrected sharply.

"He was trying to help me," Bruce said, aiming for 'calm' and falling somewhere closer to 'frantic.' "He was almost done. It was for my own good, he said. He had a cure—"

"No," Tony interrupted sharply. "He didn't."

Everyone looked at Tony, and he shrugged. "The shit he injected you with, when you were, uh, not yourself. That wasn't a 'cure.' And don't say that shit, he wasn't trying to help you."

Forcing himself to relax, Bruce amended, "Fine, he had a...a treatment."

"He had a drug that knocked out your sympathetic nervous system. What did he tell you it was?"

Bruce looked away, absorbing this new information. "He said it suppressed the gamma radiation. Said if he got the dose right, he could cure me."

There were several beats of silence. Then Tony spoke up again. "No. He was looking for something that could control you. Or something like you. He didn't want to cure you."

Dazed, Bruce looked up at him. "What...how do you know that?"

Grimly, Natasha said, "We've seen their records. He was trying to reproduce you. Or make something...similar. But he needed to understand your limits and he needed to understand how to shut you down before he could move onto the next stage. He _was _going to move on. He had...supplies laid in for phase two."

Bruce whipped his head around to face her. "Why would he want to do that? I'm a monster. I'm not an asset, who'd be so stupid—Ross." Petersen had said something about having a military commander friend. Bruce had let it go over his head at the time—he'd been kind of out of it—but now...now it was clicking. Combined with the knowledge that _someone _wanted him reproduced...only Ross would want that. Only he'd be stupid enough to want that. Hadn't he learned yet? His last attempt had not gone well at _all_.

Clint spoke up for the first time. "There's some evidence Ross was behind this, yeah. But nothing definite. Just some contracts that he made that seem to have wound up funding the wrong things." He paused, then added, "Like international terrorist groups conducting illicit experiments."

Natasha smacked the back of his head. "I think he got it, dumbass, but thanks for clearing it up."

"Anyway," Tony interrupted, "SHIELD is investigating, and even though there's a lot of circumstantial evidence, they're probably not going to find anything to nail him with."

Bruce's stomach dropped. If what Tony was saying was true, then...he'd been held for four days, tortured...subjected to experimentation...and there was nothing really stopping it from happening again. Sure, Petersen was...dead. But how long would it be until Ross found another underfunded scientist to run his experiments?

He felt sick.

A condition that was only exacerbated by the fact that he'd actually _listened _to Petersen. He'd bought his bullshit hook, line, and sinker. Sure, he'd been starving, and drugged, and tortured, but that didn't make it okay. He'd believed what he'd been told, so desperate was he for a cure.

"Try to calm down," Tony advised. "You're still recovering, and—"

"Why don't you just drug me?" Bruce snapped, flinching back, away from Tony. He quickly apologized, "I'm...sorry. I just. I'm not...myself." He looked around at all of them. "Where am I, anyway?"

"Don't you recognize your own room?" Tony asked. "Well, I guess I remodeled a bit after you left. New carpet and stuff. I thought you'd appreciate the purple."

Bruce looked around again. This _was _his room at Stark Tower, where he'd stayed for a month in the summer. Just...purple. "Oh. I'm sorry, I..."

"It's okay," Natasha assured him. She stood, her glare at the others communicating clearly that they should step out. "Why don't you rest? We can get your official statement for SHIELD later." She gave his hand a quick pat before she left the room, and Bruce didn't even flinch. Clint and Steve followed after muttering their goodbyes.

Tony lingered, though, and when the room was empty, he turned to Bruce. "You don't really think what happened...it was for your own good, right?" He sounded concerned.

Bruce sighed. "I...no. I was confused." _And pathetic._ But he added, "The drug worked, though. It works."

Tony nodded reluctantly. "I know. I saw a guy—Petersen, the guy in charge—dose you with it when you were big and green. Knocked you right out and back into, well, you."

Bruce went very white. "You said Petersen was dead." It was almost accusatory.

"Uh, he is," Tony answered. "Just after that, before you turned back, you, um. Knocked him down a hallway. He cracked his head on the floor, was dead by the time we managed to check on him." He frowned. "Don't you dare feel bad about that."

The color slowly returned to Bruce's face. Without acknowledging the second part of what Tony had said, he mused, "I guess that must be...how they got me there in the first place. I was...someone shot me. And then, I woke up in a cell. And Petersen—" he practically choked on the name "—said they'd tested the drug at max dosage..."

"They could have killed you," Tony pointed out harshly. "Using a drug like that, untested."

Bruce shrugged that off. "They didn't. And it works." He looked at Tony. "I want to test it."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "Test it how?"

"Not like...they were. Clinically. Um. No knives." He felt briefly sick at the memories, felt the ghost of a razor blade on his skin, but pushed that aside. That was in the past. And he might be able to get something good out of this. Salvage _something_. Not his dignity, but...something.

"Right. Obviously. No knives," Tony agreed. He stood up. "You really need to rest. Give JARVIS a call if you need something." He gestured to the nightstand on the other side of the bed. "There's some crackers and toast and other bland shit there, since you're probably hungry. Otherwise, sleep tight." He turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Bruce looked at the closed door for a good minute, then slowly turned to the food. It was true; he _was _hungry. He ate slowly, sipping the bottled water he'd been given. When he was done, he laid down, curling into a tight ball.

It took him less than a minute to fall asleep again.


	4. Give Thanks

**Thanks, yet again, to irite, who's the best beta ever.**

**You are now entering a fluffy, happy, torture-free zone.**

* * *

"The best thing about cooking absolutely none of this ourselves is that it doesn't matter when we have it a week late," Tony proclaimed, standing over a turkey and brandishing a huge knife.

Pepper hastily took the knife from him, casting a quick look at Bruce. He gave her a small, reassuring smile. For the moment, he was fine.

"Sit down, Tony," Pepper instructed. She began to cut slices from the bird, ignoring Tony's petulant sighing.

Bruce took the opportunity to shape his mashed potatoes into a volcano and add gravy in a lava-like way. Then he added a spoonful of cranberries to his plate. "Who did cook it?" he asked.

"I had it catered," Pepper answered. "They were a little irate when I told them to push the order back a week, but Tony's generosity more than made up for their troubles."

"It did?" Tony asked, stealing a slice of turkey before Pepper was done cutting. She slapped his hand, and Tony lunged back, out of range.

Bruce had been back in the States for a little bit less than a week, and finally getting the Thanksgiving dinner he'd been promised once upon a time, before...everything.

It had been a trying week. Despite his best efforts to put his experience in the past, Bruce found it lingered. He learned the hard way that he reacted very badly to the phrase 'Calm down.' The sight of orange juice made him nauseated, the taste made him puke. The sight of knives—everything from scalpels to butter knives—made his heart jump to his throat.

But he was getting through it. Day by day. And today, watching Pepper carve up the turkey with an impressively large knife, he hardly felt nervous at all. This was _Pepper_, after all.

A few days ago, he'd started testing the compound Petersen had developed, using notes SHIELD had salvaged from the ruins of the compound. He had some promising leads for further research.

He was starting with computer models. Those seemed safe.

"I thought you invited Steve," Pepper said from the head of the table.

"I did," Tony answered. "It's not like him to be late, either, and I told him to get here at 4:30. Probably found a kitten or something he needed to rescue."

Pepper's brow furrowed. "You think he's okay?"

"I'm sure he's fine, he's Captain America," Tony answered, but he looked vaguely worried, too. Bruce supposed his own ordeal was still at the front of everyone's minds, that a missing teammate still hit too close to home to dismiss outright.

Just then, JARVIS announced, "Captain Rogers is here, sir, with guests."

"Guests?" Tony asked, eyes narrowed. "It better not be kittens."

"Mr. Barton and Ms. Romanoff."

"Oh, come on!" Tony exclaimed. "There's not enough food for two extra people!"

There was easily enough food here to feed ten people, but Bruce didn't say that. Instead, he said, "I'm sure it'll be fine, Tony."

Natasha and Clint had been working on trying to get enough dirt on Ross to get him put away, but like Tony had predicted, it was mostly futile. Too many loopholes and dead ends. Bruce knew they were trying, though, and he appreciated that they were putting in an effort despite the dim prospects.

The three new arrivals got off the elevator, and Tony greeted them, "Geez, freeloaders, you could at least be on time."

"Steve drives like he's ninety years old," Clint said. "Which, to be fair, fits." He sat down next to Tony, who pointedly moved his chair an inch closer to Pepper. Steve sat down next to Clint.

Bruce smiled, and Natasha slipped into the chair next to him. She looked at his plate. "Nice volcano."

"Thanks," he answered. A moment later, Pepper deposited a slice of turkey on his plate, and Natasha began to fill her own, shaping her own mashed potatoes into a volcano to match Bruce's.

Conversation over dinner was light, and once the plates had been cleared and everyone had moved onto the different pies, Natasha asked Bruce, "Can I have a word?"

"Sure," he answered.

She led him into the living room and sat down on a couch. Bruce followed suit. Abruptly, she said, "Ross is going to walk."

This wasn't exactly surprising, but Bruce was still disappointed. Or maybe angry. It was tough to tell. "Oh."

Natasha looked at him. "It makes me sick."

_Me too_, Bruce thought, but he said, "It's okay. I know you tried."

Natasha lowered her voice. "It's not okay. I could...take care of him myself."

Momentarily surprised by someone offering to assassinate his nemesis, it took Bruce a couple of beats to respond. "I, uh. That's really, um. Nice? But I don't think..."

With a small smile, Natasha said, "I kind of figured you'd say that, but I thought I'd ask."

"I appreciate it," Bruce answered honestly.

She nodded. "Clint was willing to do it, too. So're Rogers and Stark. I'll call them off." She took a bite of her pie. Without looking at him, she offered, "If you ever want to talk..."

"I...might take you up on that. But, um, not right now." He was still healing, still felt too raw in places to want to touch those spots just yet.

She nodded again. "Figured you'd say that, too. But. I thought I'd offer." She stood, taking his empty plate from his hands. "You gonna be okay?"

That, he could answer. "I think so." Sure, Ross was still out there, but Bruce knew now that he had four friends willing to take him down, if it ever came to that. And as much as he hoped it wouldn't, it was still reassuring to know.

Bruce stood up and followed Natasha into the kitchen, where she tossed their plates into the dishwasher, but not before nailing Tony with a blob of whipped cream she scraped from one of them.

The resultant food fight was entirely unavoidable.

Pepper's wrath, though, could not be dodged.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review if you're so inclined.**


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